“Whatta yah mean, I’m fired!?” The rainbow-maned pegasus shouted at the top of her lungs to the unfeeling government official before her. “Doesn’t the leader of the weather team get some sort of tenure!?”
“I’m afraid Miss…” The unicorn looked at his notepad. “Rainbow Dash, that the tenure only exists as long as the Weather Patrol itself exists.”
“What? Wait, what!?” Rainbow Dash grabbed her mane and pulled it downwards in shock. “You’re shutting down the entire Weather Patrol? How is that even supposed to work!?”
She grabbed the unicorn’s collar and pulled him up in the air, looking him right in the eye. “What’s going on? Who’s going to change the weather if the Weather Patrol doesn’t!?”
“That’s the best part!” The red unicorn suddenly began grinning as Rainbow Dash put him down. “It’ll be such a relief on the Equestrian Budget, that’s for sure.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, great, now what about the flipping weather!?”
“Didn‘t you hear?” The unicorn practically jumped with glee. “Discord’s been reformed! He’s agreed to take on all of his original responsibilities once again, making the Weather Patrol obsolete.”
Rainbow Dash’s face fell further and further as the bureaucrat continued his explanation. “Why it’ll be wonderful! Rainstorms will no longer need to be scheduled, spring will usher itself in, snowflakes will form spontaneously, rainbows will grace the sky after every spring shower…” He sighed. “It’s amazing what a little controlled chaos can bring to the world.”
Rainbow tilted her head and made a perplexed face. “You… You just named three major businesses and one special tradition that will be…” She whisked a hoof over her neck. “Fft-gone, just like that?”
“That’s the plan!” The unicorn turned to leave the cloudhouse. “Well, I’m sure that both the snowflake and rainbow industry will linger a while, before Discord’s natural phenomena win out.” He tapped his chin in contemplation. “I suppose that Winter Wrap-Up will evolve into a new celebration, rather than disappear.”
“But the Weather Patrol gets the axe right away?” Rainbow Dash was actually starting to cry, darn it all! “No warning, just ‘later dudes, good luck in your future employment?’”
“I’m sorry, but the patrol is government funded…” The unicorn tried to be sober, but there was no keeping the smile off of his face. “With the funds for the patrol freed up, imagine all the good things we can spend taxes on now!”
“Ah, that reminds me!” The unicorn turned back to the pegasus. “Your bosses have mentioned that you are free to use any of them as references in your job search, and we wish you luck in your future career.” With that, he teleported back into his balloon and floated off, searching for other pegasi whose days needed ruining.
Rainbow Dash sat on her cloud, every fiber of her being trying not to cry. She didn’t need to cry, she already had an alternate career in mind. She was gonna become a Wonderbolt, after all.
In the meantime, however, she was very, very unemployed.
Several weeks had passed, and the job search had nearly proved unfruitful. After so long with no paychecks, Rainbow Dash had started to pawn her Wonderbolts collectables just to keep her house running. When Applejack got wind of it, she hired on her pegasus friend as a farm hand, just until she could get back on her own two hooves.
Rainbow bucked another tree as the rain poured down, soaking her to the bone. “Stupid Discord and his stupid rain.” Apples fell into prearranged baskets lining the base of the tree. “Don’t need no stinkin’ Draconni-whatsits to rain on my parade.”
As if in response, a large lightning bolt blasted out of the sky and tore a nearby tree clean in half. Rainbow Dash yelped and raced into the lightning rod-protected barn. There, she found Applejack and Big Macintosh patching up the leaky roof.
Big Mac emptied a pot of collected water into a trough. “This here rain’s been going on all week long, the trees are gonna get waterlogged.”
Applejack pounded a new board into the rafters in an attempt to block the leakage. “Ah hear that. I’ll be surprised if it ever lets up.”
Rainbow Dash glared at the foul weather outside. “He’s gotta run out of water sometime.”
Applebloom, the apple family’s youngest sibling, poked her head out of a hay bale. “Ackshally, Equestria’s been switched to the ‘water cycle,’ Miss Cheerilee was teachin’ us about it!” She removed herself from the bale and began reciting her lesson. “The water cycle is Evaporation, Condensation, and Precipitation! The heat from the sun evaporates the water into the sky, the water cools and condensates into clouds, and then the water falls in rain! Precipitation!”
Applebloom grinned in satisfaction that her lesson was learned. “It’ll never really run out of water, ‘cuz it’s always bein’ reused!” Noticing that Rainbow Dash’s attention on the filly was not exactly friendly, Applebloom chose that moment to shut up.
“I think he’s doing this on purpose,” Rainbow growled.
Applejack walked up to her friend, avoiding dripping streams of water. “Yah mean Discord? Naaah.” She gave the blue pegasus a quick punch to the shoulder. “He’s reformed, remember? He’s just doing his job of bringing the good kinda chaos back to Equestria. You know, the same randomness that the rest of the world has?”
“Just because everypony does it, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do!” Rainbow covered her face in her hooves. “I don’t give a flying feather about the griffons or the dragons, and how they do weather! Our way worked just fine!”
The orange earth pony had only just managed to cover her younger sister’s ears. “Cut it out with the cussin’ Dash!”
“I’m sorry, Applejack,” Rainbow said. “It just all feels wrong, somehow.”
“Give it time, sugarcube,” Applejack sighed. “It’s all we can do.”
“’All we can do…’” Rainbow Dash repeated the words with a slightly sarcastic slant. “Well, we sure as heck could do something better than nothing!”
“Rainbow Dash…” Applejack looked right in her friend’s eyes. “You’re mah friend, and I love you. If you want to start something, I’ll be right beside you.” Rainbow started to speak, but Applejack cut her off. “Don’t, it’s all I can do to repay you for years of loyalty to us. But do me a favor…”
The farmer turned away. “Don’t lay about and grouse. Just try and live in the new world a little while, ok? Jus’ for the sake of your own sanity.”
Rainbow Dash flinched as the barn was rocked by a clap of thunder. “Alright, I’ll try.” She sat back against a stray bale. “I’ll be honest with yah, I don’t like it one bit.”
Applejack went back to fixing the roof. “I’ll be honest myself, I’m not sure I like it much either.”
Rainbow Dash sweated under the full heat of a noon-day summer sun. A couple of months had passed, and the job search had become even more hopeless. Nopony was hiring an ex-weather official; the market was absolutely saturated with them as it was. Unable to support her house on the meager bits Applejack was able to pay, the unemployed pegasus had moved out of her cloudhouse to live on Sweet-Apple Acres full-time. She bucked an apple tree with the full force of her frustrations, and began to carry the baskets to a cart.
Applejack figured that this would be their last summer harvest, now that Equestria weather was following the “natural order” of things. Plant in spring, care in summer, harvest in fall. Rainbow sighed, back when she ran the Ponyville Weather Patrol, the Apples were able to get at least two harvests per year, if not more. Cutting back was gonna hurt their wallet.
As she worked, an idea sprung into her mind. Flying up, she used her pegasus magic to conjure up a cloud. Spreading it out, she created a nice little spot of shadow where she was working. She smiled at her handy-work, content that the labor would be less stressful with a cooling shade.
Her smile fell as a sudden gust of wind swept the cloud away.
“Hey! What gives!?” Rainbow chased after the cloud, intent on wrangling it. By the time she reached it, it had dissipated into almost nothingness. She ground her teeth together, cursing the wind that had swept her shade away. “Aaaarrggh! Nothing works anymore! What’s wrong with these ponies, can’t they see that this isn’t right?”
“That depends on what you see as the correct way to do things, Dashie…” A charismatic voice filtered through the tree tops to Rainbow Dash’s ears. “After all, a lot depends on our point of view… Case in point!”
Rainbow Dash suddenly found the world turned upside-down, and she plummeted towards the apple trees above. She screamed more in surprise than in fear, as she quickly got her wings under control. She fluttered below the canopy and landed right beside the apple-filled baskets.
Another scream forced its way out of her mouth as the apples rolled out of the baskets of their own accord. “Eat us! We’re so delicious!”
“And nutritious!”
“And if you’re ambitious, quite malicious!”
Rainbow was backed against a tree, fight-or-flight instincts still battling it out for dominance. A look of sheer bamboozled terror stretched her features. To her relief, the apples stopped rolling towards her. To her immense un-relief, an ethereal chuckle rolled through the air. “Haha! Though I hate reusing a gag, it’s been said that if a joke works once, use it again!”
The scattered apples rolled together into a large pile, melding together. When they had finished, the twisted form of Discord, the Spirit of Chaos, had formed out of the apples. “And a happy day to you, Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty. How goes the farming life?”
Rainbow Dash saw no reason to sugarcoat it. “It sucks.”
Discord placed his paw under his chin contemplatively. “Ouch, very blunt.” He smiled mischievously. “But that’s what I love about you, Dashie, you’re not afraid to share your feelings.” He leaned down, his serpentine body bending into impossible positions. “So tell me, how do you like the new world order?”
Rainbow narrowed her eyes at the draconequus. “It sucks. But not just for me. It sucks for everypony!”
Discord acted surprised. “Really? From the talk around Canterlot, I figured that natural weather was the biggest thing since sliced bread!” His entire body changed to a shade of blue just darker than Rainbow’s, his face the picture of sadness. “What do you find bad about it?”
Rainbow flew up to talk right to his face. “What’s wrong with it? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it! You’ve destroyed an entire industry!” It was all she could do to not punch the chaos avatar right in the face. “You’ve put millions of ponies out of work, and you didn’t even improve anything! The weather stinks, unemployment stinks, and you stink!”
The draconequus quickly sniffed his armpit, made a face, and shrugged. “Eh, it’s a start.”
Rainbow was taken aback. “What?”
Discord grabbed Rainbow Dash in a hug beneath his taloned arm. “Allow me to tell you a story, my dear, about a species of Technicolor Ponies that didn’t need chaos.” He held up three claws in his paw. “Three races in perfect harmony. Gak! Now these ponies thought that they were all that. They controlled the sun, the moon, the weather,” He grinned at her. “And the very earth beneath their feet.” The draconequus placed her on the ground.
“Now, once in a very long while, there came along a creature who loved a little randomness in his life. In order to show these ponies a little fun, he would co-opt the fabric of reality and get a real party going…”
Rainbow had heard enough. “Then blah, blah, blah, the Elements of Harmony sealed you away for a zillion years and the ponies all lived happily ever after, the end. Get to the flying point, creep.”
Discord’s big grin shrunk itself into a mean-spirited smirk. “Well, a long time later, the draconequus, the creature of chaos, was released, reformed, and put on parole.” He slithered over to the blue pegasus, sending shivers down her spine. “But not without one final knife to the back of Celestia’s perfect empire.
“He took control of the weather, removing the one thing that made the pegasi so special.”
Discord grabbed Rainbow Dash’s tail as she tried to fly away. “Imagine the chaos caused by an entire third of the population suddenly losing their livelihood! Imagine the blow to the economy caused by an entire third of its revenue falling right out of the sky! Imagine the national budget going cock-eyed, while the tax-payers no longer have money to give!” He smiled nastily as he dangled Rainbow Dash high into the air. “Imagine the lost hopes of a billion ponies losing what makes them special.”
“You really think Celestia’s stupid enough to let that-”
"My buddy-wuddy Tia's got nothing to do with it," Discord shushed her. “Listen Dashie, the day I took over weather duties, ten committees were formed and four dozen new programs were created to vacuum up all that extra revenue no longer being spent on the Weather Patrol.” He grinned crazily at the helpless pegasus, pulling off a scaly foot and letting it fall to the ground. “When the other shoe drops, it’ll take Equestria years to rebuild. If they can ever recover!”
He dropped her in a heap at his mismatched feet. “The funny thing about it is that they’ll never peg me! All I’m doing is making Equestria the same as the surrounding countries, and those guys seem to love the weather.” Rainbow got to her feet and faced the certified nutcase before her. “And here I am, little old reformed Discord, doing exactly what they asked me to do.”
Rainbow Dash felt a sudden chill running down her spine. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
Discord placed a single sharp talon on her head. “Though Chaos is who I am, I admit I do have something of a hobby in petty vengeance. It’s a weakness of mine.”
His eyes began to swirl as he continued. “You were the proudest of us all, Dashie, you and the entire Pegasus race. I can’t stand to see somepony so sure of themselves. Strong minds, alas, are so very hard to control.”
Rainbow Dash’s face took on a blank look as Discord’s magic began its work in her. “You’re not going to remember this conversation, unfortunately, but some small part of you will take all of this to heart. It will do me good to see you walk through life with the nagging feeling that something is very wrong. You’ll know it, but you won’t be able to put your hoof on it.” He gave the blank pegasus a look of mock-pity. “Then, when the world begins to burn you’ll cry and scream for help, and nopony will stop to put out the fire because they’re too busy congratulating themselves over how high they were able to stack the firewood.”
Discord disappeared in a blinding flash, his chuckles fading into the breeze.
Rainbow Dash shook her head to clear it, she had too much to do to just daydream about being a Wonderbolt all day. She gazed at the sky and blew a raspberry. "Stupid weather."
The chaotic creep reappeared in Fluttershy’s cottage, a few miles away.
“Hello, Discord, how are you doing?”
He smiled. “Absolutely lovely, Fluttershy, my friend. How about we start tea now?”
“Oh, yes,” Fluttershy replied. She brought out her best china to share a pleasant repast with her odd friend.
“Oh, and Fluttershy,“ Discord added. “You may want to pay a visit to Rainbow Dash, she’s been feeling a little down lately.”
Fluttershy nodded her agreement. “Thank you for making an effort to be friends with everypony, I hope Rainbow will come around eventually.”
A low chuckle escaped the draconequus’ throat. “Let’s hope so, my friend. Let’s hope so.”